1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for searching for and displaying a software object retained in a computer system. In this specification, a "software object" includes all the objects, the access to which is controlled in a computer system, such as a file, a program, an area in a main storage, application software, a document or an image. Simply speaking, a "software object" contains a data set which can be called by a single name and can include data such as an image or text and an operation and an application which are implemented as application software.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various kinds of data search methods have been proposed for accessing and displaying a software object retained in a computer system. For example, in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 6-110941, a system for combining map data with data about the customers living in a section (or a district) represented by the map data and simultaneously outputting these data on a display screen of a map data processing system functioning as a data search system is disclosed.
In the system disclosed in the patent publication, when an operator selects one of a plurality of supply conduits within a map displayed on the display screen, a customer's number corresponding to the supply conduit number of the selected supply conduit is searched for in response to the selection operation. When the customer's data associated with the customer's number is found, both the map in the vicinity of the supply conduit and the customer's data are displayed. Thus, in order to retrieve, on a display screen, other information associated with the information which has already been displayed as an image through a conventional data search system, an operator is required to specify information to be retrieved by selecting a point or an area within the image which has already been displayed on the display screen and then to search for the specified information on the display screen.
However, in order to retrieve information other than the information displayed in the above-described manner through such a data search system, an operator is required to perform an operation for specifying each item of information to be retrieved, for example, by selecting a point or an area within the displayed image. Therefore, if the operator tries to sequentially retrieve a plurality of mutually associated information items existing in storage media through such a data search system, such a specification operation must be performed for retrieving a single information item and a plurality of mutually associated information items cannot be retrieved successively.